Surprised that Hama included Tyrone on the list, but omitted Captain Minh. He seemed to be big on Capt. Minh in the late 80's. I'm okay with Minh's omissions, because he didn't seem like a relevant character.

For issue 253: it looked like the "other" soldier, Terry Chiang, survived. Is that accurate?

I like the fact that Duke and Roadblock have a long history together. This was somewhat similar to a "Hasbro Comic" from about 10 years ago that had Duke & Roadblock meeting the Crimson Twins in Trucial Abysmia. Issue 253 was much better, however.

This was a meh issue. Duke is still the same boring, flat character he always was. Hennesey an awful stereotype (save for the gender role reversal, smh) and a cliche ending that even Duke and Roadblock had to smirk about. The Stalker issue was pretty good, the Baroness ok, this issue another notch down, not really looking forward to the Destro episode. You know who I'd like to know more about? Characters like Darklon and Lowlight. Characters who have not been done to death.

A bit of fact checking would have avoided the basic inaccuracies regarding the air support (first described as "Su-7 Frogfoot" - the Su-7 Fitter and the Su-25 Frogfoot are two separate planes; but which finally reveal themselves to be a-4 Skyhawks.)

On a bigger level, the story doesn't fit into the mold developed in ARAH in general (and most recently the Stalker story) because the pre G.I.Joe background to this one was more recent Middle East rather than Vietnam.

At the end the whole thing is sort of tied to a later time right before the formation of the Joe team, but this feels forced.

There's a fierce, largely realistic firefight which I largely appreciate, but Hama is at his best when he's showing a little more moral complexity - the really classic Special Mission stories were ones that showed the good guys struggle with themselves a little, and highlighted the Joes' antagonists as competent soldiers and often admirable in their own ways.

I'll be honest and say I'm not enjoying this new "Special Missions" run as much as I had hoped - they are focusing on individual characters more than on than teams. The Baroness one has been the best of the batch so far - and that isn't something I had expected.